Photography Fail at Ohiopyle State Park

A passion for photography & capturing people’s memories isn’t always an easy job. I’ve had so many amazing experiences, but also a few memorable “fail” moments. Once, a client side-swiped my car, twice I have shown up to a shoot only to have a major storm also show up, I’ve dropped lenses twice (the second time actually busting the lens), and once we got chased out of a certain location by an angry goose!

A few weeks ago, I added another “fail” to the list.
Remember Laura & Jake? I took their adventurous engagement photos a few weeks back & we had such a fabulous time at Ohiopyle State Park in the Laurel Highlands!

We had already spent a little over 90 minutes hiking around Ohiopyle, enjoying the glorious golden sunset, seeing the sites & visiting the spot where Jake had proposed to Laura. There was one last spot that they wanted to go, but we couldn’t hike to it. So, we hopped in the car & drove over to Cucumber Falls. If you were simply driving through Ohiopyle, you’d probably miss this little gem of a waterfall – it’s a little bit off the main drag as you do have to drive to it. We unloaded & climbed down the “makeshift” stairs that led to the base of the waterfall. I call them “makeshift” because it’s just rocks that someone has manipulated into stairs & added a railing.

The waterfall flows into the Youghiogheny River and it opens up into this gorgeous view! I instantly knew what image I wanted and had Laura & Jake sit down on this big rock. I took the above image & was in love.

I wanted to get just a little bit higher though (short person problems) and stepped up onto a rock to give myself another 12 inches of height.

Let me hit the pause button right there: I had on sneakers. Not the most amazing hiking shoes, but not dress shoes or flats like I would typically wear to photoshoots. Laura had warned me that we would be doing a lot of hiking & said it was quite alright if I was wearing something a little more casual. I took her up on it.

Okay, play button: I stepped up on the rock and instead of propelling myself upward, I was immediately going down. In the split second that I could think about what was going on, I knew I was falling in the direction of the hand that had my camera in it. I knew I didn’t want to fall into the water (with my camera! AGH) and I also knew I didn’t want my camera to hit the rocks around me. But, I had a spit second! Not much time to fix my falling position!

I ended up twisting my arm around to protect my camera, but that meant my forearm was going to take the brunt of the fall. And it did. And somehow I snapped a photo on my way down – here’s my view (if only you could see my face! I’m sure it was pretty epic):

Amidst audible gasps & “Are you okay?!”s, I jumped up (careful to land on my feet on solid ground this time). “I’m okay, I’m okay!” I assured Laura & Jake. Ugh, until I looked down at why my arm was stinging – I was bleeding from several spots and could tell several others would be bruised by the next morning. “I promise, I’m really okay, it looks much worse than it is! I’m just worried about my camera..” Even though my arm had absorbed most of the fall, my camera still had fallen with me and lightly touched down along with the rest of my body.

I took a couple of test shots and all seemed fine. So, we went back to shooting! No use crying over a fall & bleeding arm!

I am overwhelmingly thankful that even though I fell (and probably looked absolutely insane while doing so) – it could have been a million times worse. I could have easily broken my wrist, I could have fallen into the water, I could have twisted an ankle (and I can only imagine how I would have made it out of there if I couldn’t walk!), I could have smashed my camera into the ground! But thankfully, I simply bruised & cut up my arm. It has since healed over almost completely now and you’d never even know it happened. And just to be safe (even though it seemed fine), I sent my camera off to Canon for an inspection & cleaning. It has since returned with a clean bill of health!

I will never forget it though – and I took a picture of my rock “nemesis” just to be sure I wouldn’t!